OMG, is it time to seize some Iranian tankers?

I think what this needs is more...

How Trump Makes Good on His Threat to Iran

As with Venezuela, he can order the seizure of tankers carrying oil in violation of sanctions.

By Saeed Ghasseminejad and Behnam Ben Taleblu, WSJ

Jan. 9, 2026

President Trump has warned Tehran that Washington is “locked and loaded” if the regime slaughters peaceful protesters. Iran is calling his bluff. With at least 42 confirmed dead, the president’s warning is now a policy test. Will America enforce its red lines?

Mr. Trump has proved he isn’t Barack Obama on Iran policy. Whereas President Obama made a nuclear deal enriching Tehran’s theocrats, Mr. Trump withdrew from that flawed agreement and pursued a sanctions strategy robbing the regime of oil revenue. When Iranians took to the streets starting in 2017, unlike Mr. Obama in 2009, Mr. Trump offered robust political support to protesters and torpedoed the conventional wisdom in Washington that doing so would be the kiss of death.

Now, as the regime is firing at hospitals and warning of no leniency, protesters inspired by President Trump’s promise are beseeching him to help, even naming streets after him. Will Mr. Trump replicate Mr. Obama’s 2013 red-line debacle in Syria, which undermined U.S. deterrence globally, locked in a teetering regime for more than a decade, and plunged the Middle East into bloody conflict begetting a refugee crisis?

The Islamic Republic is betting that it can suppress this latest uprising with lethal force while the West watches. Mr. Trump can prove them wrong. How? By tracking and confiscating oil tankers, something the U.S. has done with Venezuela. These tankers, dubbed the “Shadow Fleet,” are illicitly transporting Iranian oil to China and undermining Mr. Trump’s policy of maximum pressure.

This approach allows the U.S. to inflict acute pain on the regime without immediate military strikes against Iranian territory. It also buys time for Iranian protesters to grow their numbers on the street.

Practically speaking, seizing the vessels would fire a warning shot at the regime while denying it the revenue needed to fund its apparatus of repression. Politically, it would let Mr. Trump preserve his credibility and impose an immediate cost for the violence committed by authorities.

Tehran’s sneering response to Mr. Trump was a miscalculation. Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s highest-ranking security body, warned Americans to “be mindful” of their soldiers’ safety, forgetting that what drove Mr. Trump to kill Iran’s chief terrorist, Qassem Soleimani, six years ago was a cycle of violence in Iraq that targeted U.S. servicemen and contractors.

Indifference in the face of the regime’s violence would only prolong the crisis. A newly formed Defense Council in Iran recently hinted that the regime might even take pre-emptive military action against perceived external threats.

With the regime continuing to meet protestors with violence, the time has come to shatter its confidence. Here, the stunning military operation against the Maduro regime can bolster American power, but the Islamic Republic might still be gambling that in the Middle East, Washington will sit out the fight.

Mr. Trump can change this impression by targeting the regime’s economic arteries and signal to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the price of slaughtering his own people is the total collapse of his state’s financial viability.

Iran is already under severe economic strain. Its currency has fallen, and protests against the regime have spread nationwide. Yet Tehran still exports more than 2 million barrels of oil a day, which generates revenue to fund proxies, oppress the Iranian people, and advance a ballistic-missile and nuclear program. The mismatch between American power and the regime’s resilience exists because Washington allows it. To break the regime’s will, the U.S. must move beyond designating vessels on paper and start physically confiscating the tankers that transfer Iranian oil.

This won’t require action by Congress. The U.S. has the legal tools to handicap this fleet today. Civil forfeiture allows the U.S. to seize the illicit cargo and the tanker itself. Oil is a renewable resource, but a specialized tanker is a strategic asset. A sanction is a fine; a seizure is a foreclosure.

We know where the ships are. What the U.S. needs is the political will to seize them.

The connection between the shadow fleet and the streets is direct. Every tanker that docks is a lifeline for the regime. Every tanker seized is a victory for the opposition. For the brave men and women risking their lives in Iran, the seizure of these vessels would be a force multiplier, bolstering confidence. A bankrupt regime can’t pay domestic paramilitaries or a Shiite foreign legion to shoot its citizens indefinitely. When the regime’s income evaporates, so will the loyalty of the security forces whose members rely on it.

The window to support this movement is open, but not indefinitely. To empower the streets, Mr. Trump should seize Tehran’s shadow fleet as the first step. If that doesn’t deter Mr. Khamenei, Washington has ample room to increase the pain.

Mr. Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Ben Taleblu is FDD’s Iran program senior director.